1. Please fill out the triage form completely. We specially like it when you fill out the part that says "reason for coming to the hospital" as it prevents us from having to use our magical ESP powers to determine if you have chest pain or just a hangnail.
2. Do not disturb the triage nurse while she is with a patient. She is giving the patient her full attention. When you get into triage, YOU will get her full attention. Wait your turn.
3. Unless you are on fire or in full arrest, you can wait just three seconds for the triage nurse to acknowledge you before you start shouting at her. Believe me, if you shout at her near the end of a difficult twelve hour shift, she is liable to shout back.
4. After you have been triaged, please take a seat in the lobby and do not come to the triage desk every five minutes asking "When am I going to see the doctor?" Like we told you the first time, you'll see a doctor AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. No, we don't know exactly how long that will be.
Rules for the treatment area
1. Answer the nurses' questions honestly and completely. If you lie we WILL find out.
2.Do not go to the nurses' desk every five minutes asking how long it will be before the doctor sees you. We don't know. Again, unless you are on fire or in full arrest, please accept that there are probably patients in the ER who are sicker than you. Yes, I know you FEEL like the sickest patient in the ER; so does everyone else. However, the nice gentleman down the hall with a Sat of 70% trumps your earache.
3. Do not act like it's the end of the world when I tell ou I need to draw some blood. You knew it was coming. If you will sit still and follow my instructions, I will get the blood with a minimum of pain and difficulty. If I have to chase you across the room and hold you down, there will be no such guarantee. Nobobdy likes having blood drawn (inclucing me) but it's a fact of life that sometimes it has to happen.
4. I'm sorry that you have to stay on a stretcher in the hall. I wouldn't like it either. However, all of our rooms are full. The only other option is for you to continue waiting in the lobby. Your call.
5. Family members, please do not assume that I am going to abuse mawmaw if you leave the room. If I ask you to step outside while I draw blood or place a foley, please do not get all huffy about it. The rooms are small and you are in my way. Don't take it personally. I promise not to smother your loved one with a pillow while you are gone. The nursing staff is not your enemy.
6. If you have a complaint of abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting, you may not have anything to eat or drink. So don't ask.
7. Lastly, please remember that we nurses are only human. You can look around and see when we are very busy. Please take that into consideration. If we forget to bring you that extra warm blanket or another glass of water, don't blow a fuse. Please just assume that maybe we were busy saving a life next door.
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Please tell me I'm not the only one who has felt this way from time to time!
Love your post V. Nightingale. I think a lot of times the best thing you can do is laugh about your frustrations or you'd cry. While we don't have it as bad as you guys, when we have a lot of the same issues w/ our L/D pt's. (ie. the person who's uc's are q 20 min and a fingertip dilated w/ the family convinced that the birth is imminent). Everyone deserves to let off a little steam once in awhile. Hang in there. Just had a very nice patient last week who was an ER nurse. She and I decided we don't want one another's jobs!:)
Unless you work in the ER and truly see what the general public is like you woudn't believe some of the things people say. I have had a patient say " I have been here longer than him why does he get a room and I am in the hallway?" My response "because he happens to be be dead at this moment. "
Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
Originally posted by cyberkat
Years ago, insurance companies could refuse to pay for ER visits that were not true emergencies. That included viral infections, pregnancy tests, and toothaches.
Now, of course, I'd rather see someone come in with chest pain and have it turn out to be gas. But there is a line, that when crossed, common sense flies out the window.
Dood! An infected root canal sure is an emergency=especially on a weekend when you have nothing but motrin or tylenol and can't find a dentist until Monday.....
Unless you work in the ER and truly see what the general public is like you woudn't believe some of the things people say. I have had a patient say " I have been here longer than him why does he get a room and I am in the hallway?" My response "because he happens to be be dead at this moment. "
I just don't get it- the other guy was STILL there first:D
I would like to say that as a non-nurse, but having a mother who was a nurse in the ER for several years, I know what it's like for you nurses. I'm a diabetic and I get frequent sick migraines, so sometimes when I can't hold food down I need ER attention. I always appreciate the wonderful care the nurses provide and I always feel sort of badly for taking their time away from other more needy patients.
The ONE time I have lost it on a nurse was in the following situation: I had a horrible sick migraine, was hypoglycemic from not keeping dinner down, and walked into the ER... signed up at triage, filled out all the forms. I noticed there was no one ahead of me in triage, the waiting room was empty, and the triage area was staffed with three nurses, who were all, apparently, taking a break. They were sitting there, laughing, talking, and ignoring the patient (me). I wasn't triaged for 45 minutes!!!! I work at the hospital in question, and I was outraged... I asked them why I wasn't triaged earlier, and they said that they were out of beds, so it didn't matter when they saw me, the answer would be the same: wait. And I said to them, I'M HYPOGLYCEMIC, what if I had passed out during the wait? When someone walks into an ER, they want to know that even if it takes some time, they WILL be taken care of. When you sit there for 45 minutes while triage is obviously not busy and have not one person ask why you are there, it is unnerving and upsetting.
Anyway, most of the time, I love the nurses at the ER's I frequent. That one bad time left a poor taste in my mouth, but I know that most ER nurses are wonderful.
I too agree about the way ER is with pregnant patients, they AVOID them like the plague! But if a pt comes in with 17 stab wounds, they're all over it! I personally would rather deliver 10 babies than deal with all the crap in an ED, but to each their own! Kudos to all you ED nurses, YOU ROCK!
I think it is all about comfort level..I remember sitting at triage and having an anaphylaxis or an obvious MI come in and I went right into action without much thought..HOWEVER, when that 35 weeker rolled into my cubicle I was terrified!! I would get them in the elevator and pray it would go quick..If I was strong enough I would have thrown the gal over my shoulder and ran her up 3 flights of stairs to deposit her at the nurses station..funny thing the L&D nurse would always be so calm and quiet and here I am all freaked out...LOL Erin
Specializes in Alittle of everything but mostly ER.
I've worked in the ER for a very long time. It's very easy to say to educate the public so they don't abuse the local ER's. It's been tried. They've had it on the local news stations and guess what? They still come in with their sore throats, earaches and stubbed toes. They don't think it applies to them. I think ER nurses get frustrated because sometimes WE are sicker than the patients coming in to be treated. And also you get fed up with the abuse of the system. Don't get me wrong, when someone is truely ill, I'll do my best to help them. Just don't waste my time with something dumb that could wait or be seen in a clinic or MD's office or even be treated as simple as a trip to a pharmacy or the local Walmart for some Tylenol or pseudofed.
Yup, a tragedy is only a tragedy if no one learns from it. I remember while I was working in a little dinky place the reg clerk came back and said, Jon, you better come see this guy. "His sister just dropped him off and left." "I think he might be shot or stabbed, cause he's bleeding." So I show up for a wheelchair and I ask, what happened to you, man, you look like you're hurt. " I get just a low grunt/mumble. So we move to the resus cot with me asking, "were you shot , were you stabbed, did somebody try to hurt you,? Each question produced only a mumble so I stripped him an ruled out trauma to neck and trunk. Turned out somebody stabbed him in the middle of his fore arm. I think I let him sleep while I let the doc finish his nap. If he had anything, especially puncture in the neck or trunk, I would have called for the medivac chopper even before I woke up the doc.
Here's one I learned when I was just a kid. As I was zipping up the body back of an arrest victim, (after removing the wires from his chest) I noticed that the Lifepack was switched to "paddles." Were we treating the patient or the monitor? God knows, and I'm sure he'll (she'll) forgive me as long as I remember what I learned.
GSW and SW patients sometime bleed very little and some of the worst ones may not know they are injured. I speak from experience. I was stabbed while we were at sea 10 miles off the S. Calif. coast. It felt like somebody hit me in the chest with a wrench, but Jenkins pointed at the front of my shirt with a dark ooze formin' under it. I had no medical education or experience other than working in a pharmacy, filling Rxes while my boss was tanked up in the back. I figured he nicked my vena cava, cause the myocardium or aorta at that level would have been brighter. Lucky hit--the guy hit the middle of my sternum with a 6in Case jack-knife. If he'd a been couple inches left or right or pushed a little harder, you wouldn't be reading my post. I can't count the number of times people argue while I'm stripping them and how impressed they are when I find a bullet hole.
Going back to my old sea story reminds me of the first cracked chest I saw. I'd been an RN for a couple of weeks in a level I trauma center. I believe every nurse remembers the first person they ever saw come in alive and go out dead. A 16 y/o male came in for single GSW to the chest. In seconds, the resident made his huge cut, put in the Finochetti retractor, cross-clamped the abdominal aorta, delivered the lung and held the still-warm heart in his hands. I reflexively said, "Oh sh*t!" After his exam the resident said, "The bullet went right through the middle of his left ventricle." "I could suture it, but all I would ever get it to do is fibrillate." "Thank you everyone." I think I cried most of the way home in the privacy of my car. The more I mature the less I'm ashamed to cry in public, but in the ER at least I try to go into the utility room.
I really prefer laughing though. There was an article in the JEMS about "sick" humor. They defined it as something only health-care providers appreciate enough to find funny. I've appreciated the sick jokes in a lot of these posts. My next one I'll tell you one.
One evening we triaged a three week old female for "breathing real fast." Yeah, babies breathe faster than big people. This was on one of those rare (we never say "quiet" in ER) nights, so we had three nurse's, all of us parents, at triage. We had baby, mom, grandma, and great-grandma all at triage at the same time. The big girls took turns trying to figure out why this MUST be an emergency. One of them said, "She always be havin' loose bowels." Yeah, a real turd from a 3 week old would be quite an accomplishment! Another one said, "She always be vomicking all da time." Mom gave her some pedialyte but none of them thought about burping her, so sure enough, she spit up. So we did the best we could to teach these ladies how to bubble their baby, but I'd be surprised if any of them were sure which end of her to feed and which end to diaper. I said a little silent prayer on my way to the coffee pot. Someone PLEASE tell me how anybody ever grows up with parents that are so stooooopid? :roll
Please tell me I'm not the only one who has felt this way from time to time!
I just don't get it- the other guy was STILL there first:D 
:roll
imenid37
1,804 Posts
Love your post V. Nightingale. I think a lot of times the best thing you can do is laugh about your frustrations or you'd cry. While we don't have it as bad as you guys, when we have a lot of the same issues w/ our L/D pt's. (ie. the person who's uc's are q 20 min and a fingertip dilated w/ the family convinced that the birth is imminent). Everyone deserves to let off a little steam once in awhile. Hang in there. Just had a very nice patient last week who was an ER nurse. She and I decided we don't want one another's jobs!:)